Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Malampaya mess: Arroyo cleared, 25 charged

Former President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, now a Pampanga representative and House Deputy Speaker, is
off the hook in the alleged misuse of P900 million from the Malampaya Fund for
lack of evidence, her third legal victory since July.

Andaya is now a Camarines Sur
representative and also a Deputy Speaker, while Pangandaman is now mayor of
Masiu, Lanao del Sur province.

Former Budget Undersecretary Mario
Relampagos and former Agrarian Reform Undersecretary Narciso Nieto, along with
Janet Lim-Napoles (alleged mastermind of the P10-billion pork barrel scam), her
children Jo Christine and James Christopher and Ruby Tuason, a former social
secretary to former President Joseph Estrada, will also be haled to the
Sandiganbayan.

The indicted individuals face two
counts of plunder, 97 counts of malversation through falsification of public
documents and 97 counts of violation of Section 3(e) of the Anti-Graft and
Corrupt Practices Act for causing undue injury to the government and giving
unwarranted benefits to private parties.

Morales’ finding of probable cause
is subject to appeal.

The Ombudsman dismissed the criminal
complaint against Arroyo, then Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, and two
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) employees for “insufficiency of evidence.”

Morales applied the presumption of
good faith and regularity in dismissing the complaint against Arroyo, Ermita,
former DAR chief administrative officer Dominador Sison Jr. and cashier Nilda
Baui.

The resolution noted that the
National Bureau of Investigation, which initiated the case in 2013, “failed to prove
that they conspired with their correspondents . . . or that they deviated from
the regular procedure in their individual capacities.”

Tuason returned P40 million to the
government and turned state witness in the pork barrel scam involving Napoles
and a number of lawmakers, but this did not save her from indictment for the
Malampaya Fund scam in which she was accused of receiving a P242.8-million
commission.

The staff of Napoles were said to
have been directly involved in forging the signatures of the supposed
beneficiaries of the projects.

Morales said 12 spurious
nongovernment organizations (NGOs) linked to Napoles cornered the projects for
97 municipalities by fabricating letters of request from their mayors.

Ombudsman investigators, however,
found the documents to be fictitious, as the agricultural kits never found
their way to the intended beneficiaries.

Arroyo signed Executive Order No.
848 on Oct. 13, 2009, which expanded the use of the Malampaya Fund outside of
the energy sector five days after Andaya made a request amid the disaster
caused by Ondoy and Pepeng in much of Luzon.

The NBI found that Arroyo’s order
paved the way for the NGOs to be funded for what would turn out to be ghost
projects.

It said that even two months before
Arroyo issued the executive order, Napoles had already instructed her staff to
make the documents, including fake request letters from mayors, to be submitted
to the DAR in order to “corner” the ghost projects.

The memorandums of agreement for the
projects were signed by the mayors and agrarian reform undersecretary Nieto. He
allegedly signed the checks that were released to and deposited in the bank
accounts of the NGOs. The cash was then withdrawn and given to Napoles. —WITH
A REPORT FROM ANA ROA, INQUIRER RESEARCH